Amtrak said the problem is a “commercial power problem” and it will resume normal operations as quickly and safely as possible when power is restored.

Traffic built along Interstate 95 in the New York area this morning as tens of thousands of Metro-North Railroad commuters scrambled for alternate routes to get to work between Connecticut and New York City, the Associated Press reported.

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A high-voltage feeder cable failed early Wednesday at a suburban New York station, knocking out power to Metro-North’s New Haven line, the AP reported. The broken circuit could take two to three weeks to repair, the New York-based utility Consolidated Edison said.

The outage forced the cancellation of Acela service because the electric-powered Acela runs in Metro-North territory for part of its journey from New York to Boston, Amtrak said.

“When operating over a host railroad’s territory, in this case, Metro-North, Amtrak must follow all rules and regulations set forth by the host railroad. In this case, we are unable to operate our electrically powered Acela trains, due to an incident involving the loss of overhead wire power on their property,” Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said in an e-mail.